and as they
give tongue the rabbit rushes past a bare spot on the slope of the bank.
I fire--a snap shot--and cut out some fur, but do no further harm; the
pellets bury themselves in the earth. But, startled and perhaps just
stung by a stray shot, the rabbit bolts fairly at last twenty yards in
front of Orion, the spaniel tearing at his heels.

Up goes the double-barrel with a bright gleam as the sunlight glances on
it. A second of suspense: then from the black muzzle darts a cylinder
of tawny flame and an opening cone of white smoke: a sharp report rings
on the ear. The rabbit rolls over and over, and is dead before the dog
can seize him. After harling the rabbit, Orion hangs him high on a
projecting branch, so that the man who is following us at a distance may
easily find the game. He is a labourer, and we object to have him with
us, as we know he would be certain to get in the way.

We then tried a corner where two of these large mounds, meeting, formed
a small copse in which grew a quantity of withy and the thick grasses
that always border the stoles. A hare bolted almost directly the dogs
went in: hares trust in their speed, rabbits in doubling for cover. I
fired right and left, and missed: fairly missed with both barrels. Orion
jumped upon the mound from the other side, and from that elevation sent
a third cartridge after her.

It was a long, a very long shot, but the hare perceptibly winced. Still,
she drew easily away from the dogs, going straight for a distant
gateway. But before it was reached the pace slackened; she made
ineffectual attempts to double as the slow spaniels overtook her, but
her strength was ebbing, and they quickly ran in. Reloading, and in none
of the best of tempers, I followed the mound. The miss was of course the
gun's fault--it was foul; or the cartridges, or the bad quality of the
powder.

We passed the well-remembered hollow ash pollard, whence, years before,
we had taken the young owls, and in which we had hidden the old
single-barrel gun one sultry afternoon when it suddenly came on to
thunder. The flashes were so vivid and the discharges seemingly so near
that we became afraid to hold the gun, knowing that metal attracted
electricity. So it was put in the hollow tree out of the wet, and with
it the powder-flask, while we crouched under an adjacent hawthorn till
the storm ceased.

Then by the much-patched and heavy gate where I shot my first snipe,
that rose out of the little st